Day 91 - Class of 74

Yes folks--This is the actual tassel that was on my graduation mortarboard in 1974.  Wow, that was 36 years ago!  This poor thing has lost most of its color, the metal pieces are badly without any shine they once had, and the strings are to the point of falling apart.  If you do pull one of the strings it will just sort of disintegrate.

Yep, I'm old.  It's been in many of the cars I've owned and still it lives...  Sorta.

Day 90 - Gunpowder Sales

This is the time of the year when our local Native American tribe, The Muckleshoots, has their over-the-top fireworks extravaganza.  I talked to a guy running one of the booths for a while, and he estimated 60-70 booths up there this year.  It's crazy.

Not much up there is "Safe and Sane"... The madness is rampant and it's all for sale!

Day 89 - Stormy Sky

This is funny--Believe it or not, I shot this out the window of my car at about 45mph on the way home from work today.  They have a law about talking on cell phones while driving, but I don't think they have one for taking pictures of cool skies with barns in them.

Yet.

For the record, I took a lot of other shots but came back to this one, so it's not like this was the only thing I took and didn't work at it.  I like the stark appearance of this shot.  It's also somewhat monochromatic.  Not much color going on here.

Day 88 - Traffic Circle

They're showing up all over the place aren't they?  People seem to be pretty divided on them, but personally I love them.  They speed intersections up immensely in my opinion.  This one is next to Costco in Covington.  I did this as a test--I wanted to see how the slight elevation on the overlooking parking lot would work as far as viewing the entire circle.  I thought it worked pretty well.

My main objective was to show motion.  It was very easy to achieve, but it would be much easier and cooler-looking at night.  Daytime motion shots are tough if it's too bright out.  Anyway, I'll do night shots after summer winds down and the days get shorter, so you can bank on another of these shots some day, only with light trails instead of paint smears.

Day 87 - Fire!

I had this idea pop into my pointy, little head the other day:  I wonder if we could photograph fire trucks in a fire station?  Well, the notion sounded more interesting to me than to Suzie (probably a guy thing), but she agreed that it might be interesting.  Then I asked her if her 365 group had done a "red" theme yet?  No, not yet.  I thought it might be fun to put the two together.  Well, it turns out that today is RED in her 365 group.

While we were out driving around this afternoon, we swung into a local fire station.  Like many fire stations, it was closed up and deserted-looking, even though there were personal vehicles parked in their parking area.  I rang the bell and the door.  The guy that answered the door said, "Sure, why not?"  I motioned to Suz who was waiting in the car.  Two guys hung out with us while we shot pictures, talking the whole while.  It was a fun stop.  It's probably not every day they get someone that rings the bell and asks for photo access.  We were a little surprised that they only had one fire engine in the place though.  It's a brand-new station--Maybe that's why.  At any rate, it was something I'd like to do again at another station someday.

Although I have shots of their truck (red of course), I opted for this one instead.  I like orderly things, and I figured, how often does one get a chance to see a whole rack of bright yellow fire hoses?  Anyway, I like this shot:

Day 86 - Desert Bug

This is the license plate on the front of a VW Beetle that Suzie's brother Mark bought from a guy out in the desert in Nevada.  I guess it had spent quite a while there considering California hasn't had these old black and orange license plates in years.

It has character.

Day 85 - Morning Sun in the Valley

Once again I stopped on the way to work.  I found myself along our Green River, taking a shot across freshly-planted fields.  The morning sun wasn't optimum, but I do like the way the shadows accent the ground.

Also, how can you lose with Mount Rainier in the picture too?